Verdict with Ted Cruz
How The Iran War Ends, Talking to Astronauts & Illegals Keep Committing Crimes
10 Apr 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Welcome, it is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. Really nice to have you with us on the radio as well, wherever you are around the country. And a quick reminder, if you are listening to this radio show and you've never listened to our podcast, grab it for free. It's three days a week. You can download Verdict with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcasts.
Senator, we've got a lot to talk about in this show, including an update on Iran, and there's a lot happening there as well.
Well, first and foremost, after 39 days of an active military campaign against Iran, after bombing their military, bombing their missiles, bombing their drones, bombing their Air Force, bombing their Navy, we have had incredible military success. And President Trump has announced a two-week ceasefire, a two-week ceasefire that is happening as we speak.
We're going to break down exactly what happened. has been accomplished so far in Iran, what the military successes have been, and what's next, what President Trump is demanding of Iran, what Iran has to do to have the ceasefire continue, and what's going to happen with the Strait of Hormuz. All of that we're going to break down. We're also going to tell you about a conversation I had this week
With four astronauts on Artemis 2 coming back from the moon, orbiting the moon, I'll bring you inside Mission Control at Johnson Space Center, where I was connected directly to them. And we're going to talk about going back to the moon and beating China to the moon. And finally, we're going to talk about the lasting consequences that America still suffers from Joe Biden's open borders and
and the Democrat policies year after year of releasing violent criminals. And day after day, we see Americans killed because of the violent criminal illegal aliens Joe Biden and the Democrats released into America. Trump is turning that around, but we still have a lot of criminals on the street that the Democrats decided belonged in your community and my community.
But first, I want to take a moment before we get into all that, and I want to tell you about the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and how your help is needed right now, especially for those that are under attack in Israel as we speak. I want to take a moment and talk to you about a man named Phineas, who as a child survived the Holocaust.
Phineas survived because Christians hid him from the Nazis, risking everything to save his life. Today, he is in his 80s. He can no longer stand on his own or leave his home to receive medical care. And when the siren sounds and the missiles fall, he doesn't have time or the strength to reach safety. But once again...
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Chapter 2: What military actions did the U.S. take against Iran?
Christians saved my life during the Holocaust, he said, and now again they're helping me. So as Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day approaches, we honor survivors like Phineas, not just with words, but with action. Give $45 right now, and you can rush lifesaving essentials to the vulnerable in Israel under fire. 888-488-IFCJ. That's 888-488-IFCJ. Or go online to ifcj.org. That's ifcj.org.
Senator, let's start with Iran. And it is clear that, as Sincom chief put it today, Iran has suffered a generational military defeat. They described as a 40-year military buildup that has been crushed in under 40 days. Yet on TV, Democrats are using the word a lot in the last 24 hours. And that word that they're obsessed with now is a quagmire. Forget the definition of a quagmire.
And actually, if you if you relate it to military intervention or a war, usually that word is used after years of what has become stagnant. But they're like, oh, no, Donald Trump's got a quagmire. Your reaction to all of that?
Well, I will say we had 39 days of active military conflict, and if you look at what occurred, we took out the entirety of Iran's air defenses. We took out the entirety of their ballistic missiles, their ballistic missile launchers, their ballistic missile manufacturing capability. We took out the entirety of their drone arsenal, the entirety of their drone launchers.
We took out their drone manufacturing capacity. We also took out their Air Force, which is virtually non-existent at this point. We took out their Navy, sinking more than 140 naval ships. It's the single largest naval defeat since World War II.
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Chapter 3: What are the demands made by President Trump for Iran's compliance?
And all of that is on top of the fact that we took out the Ayatollah and virtually the entirety of the military leadership. Here's what U.S. Central Commander Admiral Bradley Cooper had to say. He said, quote, we set out to dismantle Iran's military capability and we clearly accomplished this task.
He said Iran's conventional military, quote, built over 40 years at the cost of billions of dollars, has been eliminated. He further elaborated, quote, our core strategic military objectives have been achieved after destroying Iran's missile, drone, and naval capabilities and their defensive industrial base. outlining what he characterized as a comprehensive dismantling of Iran's war machine.
The CENTCOM commander emphasized the scale of the operation. We conducted more than 13,000, let me repeat that, 13,000 strikes on Iranian military targets.
Incredible.
We flew thousands upon thousands of combat missions over Iran. And as Admiral Cooper put it, quote, in less than 40 days, you destroyed the military that Iran had built for over 40 years. He also said more than 50,000 American service members took part in the operation, and he called it a mission of profound consequences, which exceeded each and every expectation for what the forces achieved.
Then he went on to say, quote, we remain present, we remain vigilant. And we remain ready if called. And he added that the United States forces would continue to stand, quote, shoulder to shoulder with regional partners to maintain, quote, the most sophisticated and largest active air defense umbrella in the world. That is a big deal. The success that was carried out was extraordinary.
Now, the question is, after that, and by the way, the instant the attack started, Democrats began attacking, not Iran, not attacking Iran.
The people who chant death to America, not attacking the regime that has been the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, not attacking the Iranian regime that provides over 90 percent of the funding to Hamas, over 90 percent of the funding to Hezbollah, over 90 percent of the funding to Houthis. No, the Democrats didn't attack any of that. What did they attack?
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of the Artemis II mission?
Our commander in chief, Donald J. Trump. You know, it used to be that politics end at the nation's border, at our water's edge. And yet today, the instant this military conflict began, the Democrats hate Trump so much. Rather than stand with our troops, rather than stand for defeating our enemies, they immediately began cheering effectively for the United States to lose.
Let's talk about what success actually looks like. We know that the Democrats, as you mentioned before the break, they're criticizing Trump because he didn't bomb the power plants and the roads. But if he would have done it, they said that he would be then committing war crimes and he should be arrested. So which one is it?
Well, look, they're wrong on both fronts. Let's talk about what President Trump is demanding of Iran for this ceasefire to continue.
Chapter 5: How is the U.S. media framing the situation with Iran?
And mind you, this is a two week ceasefire. There's no guarantee if Iran fails, the ceasefire will end. But President Trump is making three demands, and I agree with all of them. Number one, he is insisting that Iran engage in no enrichment, zero enrichment of uranium. Now, Iran has been pressing back repeatedly, saying they have a right to enrich uranium.
Of course, Barack Obama and his disastrous Iran nuclear deal effectively protected their right to enrich uranium. Which which was would have led inexorably to Iran having a nuclear weapon.
And listen, when you have an Ayatollah who's a religious zealot who chants death to America, who has killed nearly a thousand Americans, the idea of any universe in which he has a nuclear weapon where he could kill in the blink of an eye. Hundreds of thousands of Americans. That's utterly unacceptable. So President Trump is right to insist zero enrichment, number one.
Chapter 6: How have Biden-era immigration policies affected crime rates?
Number two. Iran has a substantial stockpile of enriched uranium. President Trump is insisting hand over your enriched uranium. You cannot keep it. You cannot hold on to it.
Chapter 7: What are the goals of the Artemis program for lunar exploration?
You must hand it over. He is absolutely right to insist on that as well. And then number three, President Trump is insisting open the Strait of Hormuz and keep it open. You cannot use this as a choke point. That is exactly right. I will say you have some Democrats, some of the media that are saying, oh, they're actually saying Iran won this war because they threatened the Strait of Hormuz.
Look, Iran has engaged in terrorism for 47 years. They are continuing to engage in terrorism. I cannot, none of us can promise today that Iran will stop engaging in terrorism. But what President Trump has done is, number one, dramatically limited their ability to engage in warfare to kill Americans or to kill Iran's neighbors. The missiles are gone. The drones are gone.
The Air Force jets are gone. The air defenses are gone. The naval ships are gone. All of that, not to mention the military leadership, has been killed. All of that has dramatically weakened Iran's ability to kill others. As for the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump made a clear and direct threat. If you do not open the Strait, we will bomb your power plants and we will bomb your bridges.
Now, Democrats had a conniption fit. They said it is a war crime to bomb power plants. Now, in our last podcast that we did on Wednesday, We went through the Pentagon Manual on Warfare that makes very explicit that power plants, civilian power plants, are legitimate military targets because they're integral to the military defense of a nation.
They power communication, they power the military system, and so they have long been treated as legitimate military targets under the rules of war. Of course, that doesn't stop the corporate media. That doesn't stop the Democrats from screaming war crime. But, Ben, it's worth underscoring. Why did President Trump threaten the power plants and the bridges?
The obvious thing to threaten, the thing that would be the most devastating to Iran, is to threaten the oil infrastructure, to threaten the refineries, to threaten Karg Island, which is the main point, the main terminal through which oil is exported. If the United States bombed the oil infrastructure in Iran,
it would utterly cripple their economy that is the vast majority of the revenue that the iranian iranian government receives that the iranian people receive is is revenue from selling oil and if we bomb those facilities it would be devastating to the iranian economy why does trump not want to do it well quite sensibly because when this military conflict is over
Iran presumably is going to need to rebuild. It's not going to be American taxpayers who rebuild. We're not going to rebuild at all. We're not going to spend our money to do that. But if we have a government in Iran that is not run by Islamists, that is not actively trying to murder Americans, then presumably that government is going to need to rebuild from the consequences of this war.
And the only way that they're going to be able to rebuild with any speed, any alacrity, is if they are able to sell the oil they have and have that revenue. And so President Trump, I think quite sensibly, is focusing on other choke points that are not the beating heart of the Iranian economy going forward. That's why he threatened power plants and bridges. And let me be clear.
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Chapter 8: What recent crimes have been committed by illegal immigrants?
That's something that I hear a lot of people that, by the way, support the president, like, look, we've got to get this thing over with. This is going to ruin us, the midterms. How concerned are you about the, quote, politics playing back at home with this?
Look, we need to do the right thing, and we need to keep America safe. President Trump is a strong commander-in-chief, and he launched this military attack because Iran has been waging war against the United States. They have been funding terrorism, they've been murdering Americans, and they've stated they intended to continue funding terrorism and murdering Americans.
So he was acting to keep Americans safe. Unlike Barack Obama, unlike past presidents, he's not engaged in nation building. He's not invading foreign nations and putting our sons and daughters in harm's way to achieve amorphous goals like spreading democracy. Spreading democracy may be a wonderful thing, but we're not going to sacrifice our fighting men and women to do it.
What he is doing is taking out a real threat that was threatening the lives of Americans. The politics will come. He needs to focus on doing the right thing. That's exactly what President Trump is doing.
All right, Senator, I want to get to something else. There's been so much about Iran in the news for good reason, but there's also some other really big news items that are happening. And one of them is our astronauts. And you got to talk to them after this launch on their way back to Earth.
Well, I did in terms of when I came home this evening and my family asked, what did you do today? I was able to answer, well, I talked to four astronauts today coming back from the moon. And it's not often you get to say something like that. Yeah, no kidding. You look at the Artemis II mission. The Artemis II mission launched eight days ago. It's a nine-day long mission.
It is the first time we have sent men back to the moon. Since the Apollo program, it's been nearly 50 years now, of course, they did not land on the moon But we launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida.
They launched left the Earth's atmosphere went to the moon They orbited around the moon and now they're returning back and so they actually went further from the from Earth then then any human being says that have ever been and they're on their journey back and When I spoke to them, it was just under 24 hours before splashdown.
They're scheduled to splashdown 60 miles off the coast of San Diego at just after 7 p.m. on Friday. And so I spoke to the four astronauts. You have Reed and Victor. You have Christina and Jeremy. And they're all in the Orion capsule. I know all four of them. I was there when their astronaut class was selected to be on Artemis II.
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